More than one third of Delhi slum children malnourished: survey

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than one third
of under five year olds living in the Indian capital's slums are
malnourished, a survey conducted by a child rights group said on
Thursday, adding that this showed government child health
schemes were not reaching the poor.

The study, carried out by the charity Child Rights and You
(CRY), found that 36 percent of 3,650 children surveyed in
Delhi's slums lacked nutritious food and were underweight. One
third of that percentage showed signs of severe wasting.

Overall, malnutrition was higher among girls than boys at 38
percent against 34 percent, the survey found.

"The fast pace of urbanization poses a significant challenge
to children living in urban slums," CRY Associate General
Manager Jaya Singh said in a statement.

"It is especially challenging for newborns and infants whose
health entirely depends on the availability of the mother to
breastfeed, the ability of the caregiver and household to
provide nutritious meals, the quality of the public healthcare
system and overall community support."

India has some of the worst child malnutrition rates in the
world, higher than parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Nationally, 42 percent of children under five are
underweight, 16 percent are severely malnourished and almost 70
percent are anemic - prompting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to
call the problem "a national shame."

New Delhi, and most of its 16 million people, have prospered
as a result of India's stellar economic growth over the last two
decades.

The city has built a much lauded underground train network,
swanky office blocks and gleaming shopping malls filled with
designer stores have sprung up, and luxury cars are now common
on the congested roads.

But the wealth has been unevenly distributed, and despite
doubling the size of its economy between 1990 and 2005, India
has failed to wipe out the mass hunger which not only haunts the
countryside but also lurks in the alleyways of urban slums.

Over the years, the government has spent billions of dollars
on welfare schemes, but social activists say these are often
badly run programs riddled with corruption and that little of
the money reaches the poor.

The CRY study found that just 30 percent of children under
six were covered by the Integrated Child Development Scheme
(ICDS) - a massive state-run scheme to feed children of poor
families.

It also found that practices such as bottle-feeding, child
marriage and discrimination against women were occurring in slum
communities with little awareness that they were contributing to
child malnutrition.

More than 50 percent of the malnourished children did not
have access to clean drinking water and defecated in the open,
leading to frequent bouts of water-borne diseases such as
diarrhea, the survey found.

"In 2012, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh stated that the
problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame. Despite
that, fewer efforts have been made to tackle the gravity of the
situation," said Soha Moitra, CRY's North region director.